EDWINSTREE HUNDRED ,,,^^ ,,,„,„ 



The front of the porch is modern. All the windows 

 have flush moulded frames without brick reveals. 

 The chimney stacks belong to the original house of 

 1608 and are built of thin bricks. On the south 

 wing is a group of four detached plain octagonal 

 shafts standing on a square base ; the bases are 

 moulded. At the north end is a projecting stack 

 with two similar shafts. About midway between is a 

 stack with two circular shafts with moulded capitals 

 and bases ; one of these is ornamented with fish- 

 scale pattern, the other with a cheveron. The 

 interior has been much altered and added to, but 

 the old hall still remains ; it occupies the whole of 

 the front between the wings. The hall has a stone 

 fireplace with moulded four-centred arch and an 

 early 17th-century oak mantelpiece. The panelling 

 on these walls and also on those of the dining room is 

 of the same date. In the dining room, north of the 

 hall, is a late i yth-century stone fireplace bearing the 

 Floyer arms. There 

 are several other 

 stone fireplaces in 

 the house made of 

 clunch, two of them 

 brought a few years 

 ago from Beeches. 

 One of these, now in 

 the study, is of mid- 

 I yth-century date 

 and has a four-sided 

 moulded arch with 

 carved spandrels and 

 a frieze above carved 

 with roses and other 

 flowers. The arch, 

 like the fireplaces at 

 Queenhoo Hall, 

 Tewin, is formed of 

 four straight lines in- 

 stead of segments of 

 circles. On the stairs 

 at the north end of 

 the house are the 

 arms of Floyer im- 

 paling Boothby. In 

 an ante-room at the 

 south end of the 



house and also in the study and one of the bedrooms 

 is a quantity of mid- 1 yth-century oak panelling 

 brought from Beeches. 



A large number of fragments of Roman pottery 

 have been dug up from time to time in the fields 

 surrounding the house ; many of these are preserved 

 at the Hall, including a perfect specimen of a large 

 Roman water-jug. 



The Bury, now a farm-house, stands in the village 

 north of the church ; it is a T-shaped building of 

 early i yth-century date. The roofs are tiled. The 

 house has been much modernized ; it is of two 

 stories. There are two chimney stacks of thin brick 

 on the roofs with square shafts set diagonally on 

 sloping bases ; they have been partly rebuilt. Over 

 the back door is the date idyy moulded in the 

 plaster. 



Near Cole Green is a moated tumulus. 



Of the inhabitants of the parish Francis Young 

 gained some distinction by the dedication to him in 

 1602 of Anthony Munday's Palmerin of England}-^ 

 The divine Charles Wheatley was instituted to the 

 vicarage in March iy26, but transferred in April to 

 Furneux Pelham.i^ '^ 



Place-names which occur in Brent Pelham are 

 Bradecompe," Burstouwe," Fleslond, Bedewelle and 

 Presteslond " (xiii cent.) ; Boyle and Newclose,!' 

 both field-names (xvi cent.). 



There is in the Domesday Survey no 

 MANORS distinction between the three Pelhams. 

 All the lands in them are described as 

 in Pelham, with the exception of one holding said to 

 be in Hixham, a manor included in what became 

 Furneux Pelham. The Survey makes mention of 

 13 hides and 3 virgates of land in the Pelhams, 

 divided into eight holdings. Of these, three, con- 



The Bseches, Brent Pelham : Ceiling of Parlour 



taming in all 3 hides and 3 virgates, were held by 

 men of Asgar the Staller, probably identical with the 

 Sheriff of Middlesex who was prominent in the 

 defence of London against William I.^^ A fourth 

 holding, having a hide and a virgate of land, had two 

 tenants, a man of Asgar and a man of the Abbot of 

 Ely. Two more, of which the total assessment was 

 3 hides, were in the tenure of men of Godwin of 

 Bendfield ; and of the two remaining, one, which 

 had 2 J hides, was held by a man of Godwin and a 

 man of Anschil of Ware, and the other, assessed at 

 3 hides I virgate, by a thegn who was Anschil's man 

 and a thegn of ^Imar of Benington, together with 

 five sokemen of the king who held 5 virgates. Thus 

 the tenants of the Pelhams in Anglo-Saxon times 

 owed allegiance to six overlords, including the king. 

 In 1086 all their territory was held of the Bishop of 



" Diet. Nat. Biog. See under Bartho- 

 lomew Young, 

 " Ibid. 

 " Add. MS. 5806, fol. Z3 d. 



"Ibid. fol. 15 d. 



'' Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, 

 W.D. 1 6, Liber i. 



93 



" Cfian. Proc (Ser. 2), bdle. 192, 

 no. 49. 



" Freeman, Norman Conjuat, ii, 424, 



501, S25> 54+. 729- 



